This invention relates to a tired roller for finishing a paved surface of asphalt or the like by performing rolling compaction of the paved surface with rubber tires in the form of wheels.
A tired roller is a construction vehicle, which is equipped with rubber tires and is adapted to rolling-compact a paved surface of asphalt by the rubber tires. When applying asphalt paving, a roadbed which has not been paved with asphalt is first roughly finished by performing rolling compaction with a construction vehicle having steel wheels and then, a paved surface of asphalt is formed on the roadbed. The tired roller performs rolling compaction of the paved surface with the rubber tires to finish the paved surface. The present invention is to make improvements in such a tired roller so that steering of the tired roller can be facilitated. To facilitate the understanding of the present invention, fundamental technical details of a conventional general tired roller will now be described with reference to FIG. 7 through FIG. 10. FIG. 7 is a side view showing the overall image of the conventional general tired roller, FIG. 8 is a front view of the tired roller, FIG. 9 is a fragmentary cross-sectional view taken in the direction of arrow A of FIG. 7, and FIG. 10 is similar to FIG. 8 and will be referred to upon explanation of the field of view of an operator sitting in an operator""s section.
Illustrated in FIG. 7 to FIG. 10 are a tired roller main body 1 as a self-traveling vehicle body capable of travelling by itself with rubber tires, a power transmitting system 2 for transmitting power to wheels, said power transmitting system including a prime mover, drive-axle tires 3 as rear wheels driven as a result of transmission of power from the power transmitting system 2, idle-axle tires 4 as front wheels, a seat 5 in the operator""s section, said seat being arranged on the tired roller main body 1 at a position between the drive-axle tires 3 and the idle-axle tires 4, a steering wheel 6 arranged in the operator""s section, a canopy 7 extending as a cover over the operator""s section, and a ladder-like ingress-egress step 8 arranged in a vertical direction. The drive-axle tires 3 and the idle-axle tires 4 are all formed of rubber tires so that, when the tired roller main body 1 is caused to travel, they can rolling-compact and finish a paved surface of asphalt. Further, the drive-axle tires 3 and the idle-axle tires 4 are each constructed by mounting many tires, for example, three tires in the case of wide tires or four or five tires in the case of narrow tires on a drive axle or an idle axle to make up a tire train. To operate the tired roller, an operator on the seat 5 in the operator""s section controls the direction of the idle-axle tires 4 via the steering wheel 6 while driving the drive-axle tires 3 by way of the power transmitting system 1. This makes it possible to travel to and from on roads or to travel on paved surfaces for rolling compaction.
The operator""s section where the seat 5 is disposed is arranged close to one of side walls of the tired roller main body 1 for the convenience of travelling. In this conventional example, it is arranged close to the side wall on a right-hand side as viewed in an advancing direction of the tired roller so that its position is convenient for traveling on the left. On the other side wall of the tired roller main body 1 on the side opposite to the side close to which the operator""s section is arranged, in other words, on the side wall on the left-hand side as viewed in the advancing direction of the tired roller, the ingress-egress step 8 is arranged. As is illustrated in FIG. 7 and FIG. 9, this ingress-egress step 8 has been constructed in the form of a vertical ladder by arranging recesses, which are inwardly convex to permit insertion of foot, on the left-hand side wall of the tired roller main body 1 at several locations with predetermined intervals left therebetween. The operator of the tired roller can therefore perform ingress or egress by vertically ascending or descending the ladder while inserting his feet into the recesses.
In such a conventional tired roller, the operator""s section is arranged close to the right-hand side of the tired roller main body 1 as described above. The operator on the seat 5 in the operator""s section can therefore easily check road surface conditions and the position and activities of each worker on the right-hand side by looking down at the road surface and workers from the operator""s section. However, the conventional tired roller is accompanied by a problem in that the above-mentioned checking is difficult on the left-hand side where the ingress-egress step 8 is arranged. Described specifically, as is illustrated in FIG. 10, the operator 9, when looking down at the right-hand side, can entirely place within his visual field the space on an outer side of a line of sight which is drawn when he sees a point X, a point adjacent to the tired roller main body 1. When looking down at the left-hand side, on the other hand, he can place within his visual field only the space on an outer side of a line of sight which is drawn when he sees a point Y, a point substantially remote from the tired roller main body 1, because the operator""s section is arranged close to the right-hand side of the tired roller main body 1 and, moreover, is arranged at a high level on a top wall of the tired roller main body 1. As is understood from the foregoing, in the case of the conventional tired roller, the field of view is wide only on one of the left-hand and right-hand sides of the operator""s section and the field of view becomes extremely limited on the other side where the ingress-egress step is arranged. The conventional tired roller is therefore accompanied by the problem that its steering is difficult.
The present invention is intended to solve the above problem observed on such conventional tired rollers, and has as a technical object thereof the provision of a tired roller, which when an operator looks at a road surface, can assure wider fields of vision on both left-hand and right-hand sides of the operator""s section and hence convenient steering, by arranging an ingress-egress step in a rational fashion.
The above-described technical object of the present invention can be achieved by a tired roller provided with a tire roller main body as a self-travelling vehicle body, an operator""s section arranged close to one of side walls of the tired roller main body, and an ingress-egress step arranged on the tired roller main body, wherein xe2x80x9ca space for the arrangement of the ingress-egress step is formed on the tired roller main body at a position between the operator""s section and the other side wall on a side opposite to the side wall close to which the operator""s section is arranged, and the ingress-egress step with plural treads provided therein is arranged in the space so that the ingress-egress step extends aslant from the operator""s section toward a lower part of the other side wall, whereby a road surface on the side of the other side wall can be looked down from the operator""s sectionxe2x80x9d.
Owing to the adoption of such technical features as mentioned above, the tired roller according to the present invention makes it possible to see a load surface at a point adjacent to the tired roller main body not only when looking down from the operator""s section at the road surface on the side close to which the operator""s section is arranged but also when looking down from the operator""s section at the road surface on the opposite side. According to the tired roller of this invention, it is therefore possible to place the spaces, which are respectively on outer sides of lines of sight drawn when the road surface are looked at the points adjacent to the tired roller main body, entirely in the visual field, and hence to widen the field of view on each of the left-hand and right-hand sides of the operator""s section. As a result, the operator in the operator""s section can easily check both the left-hand side and the right-hand side by looking down at the conditions of the road surface and the position and activities of each worker from the operator""s section.